our Twitter (X) feedView our Youtube channelView our Instagram feedView our Substack feedView our Spotify feed The ritual behind the closest friendships and the best teams asks the same question: What are you working on that you need help with? Mind and BehaviorBusinessVulnerabilityTeamworkSocial Rituals The connective ritual behind my closest friendships and the best teams asks the same question: What are you working on that you need help with? During my PhD, I regularly participated in something called Shut Up and Write.
The idea was (wait for it) to be quiet and work, but in a room full of people doing the same. Two hours, sometimes three, broken into 25-minute blocks with five-minute breaks and coffee in between. I went to my first one because I was stuck, but also because I was promised free coffee.
New to the Australian version of go-fast bean juice, I happily accepted the invitation but was skeptical that I needed a room full of strangers to help me work. So I showed up to this little café buried on the top floor of the music school, eight people huddled around a table with screens up and cords everywhere. Something interesting happened during the first break.
People around the table asked, “What are you working on?” The woman across from me was three months into a chapter rewrite she hated. Somebody else had been stuck in the lab for most of the year. I mentioned in passing that I was still looking at my research question and had no idea how to begin narrowing it down, honestly wondering whether I could do this doctorate thing.
Then people started recommending things. Talk to this person who did her fieldwork on exactly that. In a five-minute break, I received more help than I had in the last three months.
But most importantly, what I heard was: You are not alone. Until that morning, I had one data point on what was stuck. I must not be doing enough.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
